If you ask the manager to justify a fee and he starts hemming and hawing, move on or require them to remove the fee.

I second @Drew Sygit in submetering and removing that bill from your expenses. 

At this point he's so far removed from your level of experience that the relationship would be either entirely one sided or neither of you would be able to provide value to the other. 

Remove items that do not add value and can break easily3.

This will remove any competition.  

Hi Terri,Nice job, looks like a money maker.The other homes nearby look very well kept up too.It certainly looks rentable.But I wondered if it would look bigger with the vegetation removed (less upkeep) so I made a mock-up of it.Good Luck!

Removing carpets, putting in hardwood floors, painting the apartments with a nicer paint.

Is there no way to break the loop and remove the tenant?

We own several fairly large apartment buildings in the Los Angeles County area and our water costs us an average of $60 per month per tenant.I am fairly sure the cost for water tripled in the past 10 or 15 years and we would probably be paying more than $120 per month if we had not installed water-saving toilets, water-saving shower heads, water=saving bathroom sink and kitchen faucets and we removed all the laws, shrubs and trees from every property we own and installed rocks and only 4 to 8 cactus plants on every property.

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